As it is usually true at this time of year, there are very few major releases hitting the home market this week.
Most of the films on this week's list that opened wide were critics and / or box office disappointments, but at least there are a number of smaller films to pick up the slack. This includes Big Fan, which features what should be a star making performance by Patton Oswald, but the DVD isn't exactly loaded with extras. That's not an issue with Moon, as both the DVD and the Blu-ray are loaded with extras. The best release of the week is arguably The Hurt Locker and both its DVD and Blu-ray are Pick of the Week material. However, it is likely that it will be joined by Transformers - Season 2 - Volume 2, once the screener arrives.
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The Ugly Truth reached a major milestone over the weekend with $5.75 million on 2046 screens in 55 markets for a total of $102.27 million internationally. Its biggest market of the weekend was Spain, where it added $1.86 million on 360 screens for a total of $5.17 million. With a debut in Italy a few weeks away, it will likely fall sharply next weekend, but should have no trouble earning $200 million worldwide before its run is over.
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District 9 returned to sixth place with $6.20 million on 2233 screens in 44 markets for a total of $77.12 million international and $192.36 million. The film opened in first place in South Korea with $1.60 million on 287 screens over the weekend and $1.88 million in total. On the other hand, it had to settle for second place in Brazil with $865,000 on 204 screens over the weekend for a total of $968,000 and Mexico wasn't as strong with $666,000 on 250 screens, but that was still enough for second place. The film still has a couple markets left to open in, but none are major markets. This will make it hard to reach $100 million internationally, but it could make to $200 million worldwide by this time next week.
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Agora opened in first place in Spain and sixth place internationally with $7.90 million on 462 screens. This is great news, as the film cost $70 million to make and it will need a massive run to break even. It won't have to earn all of it in Spain, on the other hand, and should perform well throughout Europe and when it opens here.
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Le Petit Nicolas debuted in sixth place internationally with $9.39 million on 618 screens in 3 markets. Of that total, $8.88 million was earned on 571 screens in France, which was more than five times the amount earned by the second place film.
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October started on a mixed note. While it was better than expected at the top, overall the box office was a little weak pulling in a total of $107 million. Granted, this was 10.7% higher than last week, this was 5.9% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date 2009 has now earned $7.96 million, which is still 7.5% higher than last year's pace.
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The Founding Of A Republic remained in first place down just 26% to $13.56 million on 1,380 screens over the weekend for a total of $36.16 million after two.
This film is performing amazingly in China and while it nationalistic story (it is about the rise of the communist party in China) will hurt its chances elsewhere, it's already made enough money to be considered a success.
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None of the three wide releases were able to live up to Thursday's predictions and while the number one film held on a lot better than expected, it wasn't enough to compensate. Overall the box office was down 4.7% from last weekend to $96%, which was 4.2% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date 2009 is still up on 2008 by 7.8% at $7.8 billion to $7.3 billion.
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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs enjoyed the best second weekend hold of the year for a major release to win the weekend at the box office.
The 3D family movie earned $24.6 million, by Sony's estimate, which is down just 19% from its opening.
The studio will be hoping that the great word-of-mouth will keep the movie going even with the arrival of the Toy Story 3D Double Feature next weekend.
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The three wide releases this week include two that have a shot at top spot, depending on who you ask, and another that will likely struggle for a spot in the top five.
Overall the new releases are about as strong as this time last year, but holdovers should be the deciding factor in keeping 2009 ahead of last year's pace.
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Summer ended on a strong note with three films from August that have the potential to cross $100 million at the box office. But I don't think there's a single film coming out this month that has the potential to do the same.
Then again, we're not concerned with keeping up with August, we are concerned with keeping up with September last year, and that will be an easier task most weeks.
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This week, we're starting a new feature on the site: a weekly round-up of movie trailers added to the site. For your convenience, the trailers are added to the movie's page, along with cast and crew information, and, of course, box office data once the movie goes into release.
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Weekly US Blu-ray Sales

Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Home Media Magazine.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

We refine our estimates from week to week as more data becomes available. In particular, we adjust weekly sales figures for the quarter once the total market estimates are published by the Digital Entertainment Group. Figures will therefore fluctuate each week, and totals for individual titles can go up or down as we update our estimates.

Because sales figures are estimated based on sampling, they will be more accurate for higher-selling titles.

Full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, TV and ancillary revenue
are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.